Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2003 17:22:17 -0700
Subject: (urth) mostly OT: Herodotus
From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett 

Hey everyone,

I just want everyone to know that I'm having a damned entertaining time 
reading Herodotus.  I'm beginning book three and I don't know if it's 
the translation (U of Chicago, by David Grene) or what, but it's really 
great.  It reads like an engaging classroom lecture or sitting room 
conversation.  Herodotus easily holds his own with any writer past or 
present.  His style, that of recording what people thought of their 
past, calls to mind an excellent book that I'd like to recommend:  
"Deus Lo Volt!  Chronicle of the Crusades" by Evan S. Connell.   He 
also wrote "Son of the Morning Star" about the battle of Little Bighorn 
(a blow by blow account that manages to digress in huge arcs into a 
comprehensive history of the Indian Wars without ever losing sight of 
the main story.  An amazing book.)  Anyway, "Deus Lo Volt!" is 
categorized as historical fiction but what it really is is the 
shoehorning of a gazillion primary sources into a comprehensive 
narrative of the Crusades from the first to the last.  It's narrator is 
Jean de Joinville, a knight of Saint Louis, the last real Crusader.  
All of the conversations and monologues are paraphrases of recorded 
encounters.  It is a beautiful book, well written and engaging, and 
definitely a history in the Herodotian sense, albeit a counterfeit one.

Don


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